Snooker: Ding Jun Hai won the British Championship Title

I've been expecting Ding Jun Hui to be one of the top snooker players in the world. He certainly proved himself earlier than I've expected. Must be a great experience beating Steve Davis in the final to clinch the title.

Hope he'll achieve more in coming years and surpass James Wattana as the best Asian snooker player.

Lover gives stranger $15,000 ring

It must have been a great pain to give up something so special...

A disappointed lover in the US has left a $15,000 (£8,500) diamond engagement ring in a stranger's unlocked car, accompanied by a heartfelt message.

"Hopefully this will land in the hands of someone you love, for my love is gone now," read the note.

The car's owner, from Westborough, 48km (30 miles) west of Boston, told police about his find after having it valued.

"This appears to be random, but we don't really know," police Lt Paul Donnelly told local media.

The three diamond white gold ring enclosed in a box with a white bow was placed in the car which was parked at the train station in Westborough, Massachusetts.

The anonymous message read: "Merry Christmas. Thank you for leaving your car door unlocked. Instead of stealing your car I gave you a present.

"Hopefully this will land in the hands of someone you love, for my love is gone now. Merry Christmas to you."

Ear squats

Until today I am still wondering why is there a need for ear-squats in order to eject objects hidden in body's orifices during a strip search?

To me it seems more like abuse of power. There are already enough talks about our police force being corrupted when it comes to ringgit and sen. Recent incidents seems to indicate that the force is equally as corrupted when it comes to power.

Some have argued that there is a need of substantial pay increase to the force in order to curb the problems of corruption. To certain extent this measure might help to reduce corruption. However, I still believe that the lack of transparency is the root of these problems, and it does not only apply to the police force, but to the way many things are done in our beloved country. The lack of transparency has yielded certain parties too much power and without transparency, check and balance could not exist.

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. "
- Lord Acton

Drive-through toll collection by 2008

Motorists will be able to travel on expressways without having to stop to pay toll, when the gantry toll collection system is implemented.

Works Minister Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu said that under the system, used in countries like France and Australia, the start and end of the journey would be electronically recorded when a motorist passed under a gantry.

“Payment would automatically be deducted through a prepaid card kept in the vehicle,” he added.

The system will be introduced in the Klang Valley first and motorists can look forward to uninterrupted travel by 2008. In other parts of the country, it would be introduced in stages.

Finally we're going to enjoy less traffic jams on the roads. Erm... Are we?

I've been telling some of my friends about this technology adopted by our 'friendly neighbour' since a few years' back. I told them I couldn't understand why Singapore could use this wonderful technology on their highways and yet we in Malaysia still need toll booths which are the major contributors to traffic woes. Perhaps the government needs to win elections by creating more jobs?

Interestingly Samy Vellu failed to name our closest neighbour as one of the countries to use this drive thru toll collection system.

Furthermore 2008 seems still quite far away. I wonder what kind of new technology our neighbour will be using by then?

Peeping Tom's diary

Unfortunately I'm only peeping on a family of cats.

My tenant, Alex, spotted this group of felines lazying at the backlane of my house while preparing food in the kitchen.

Cute eh? Sometimes taking photos like these can really brighten up one's day, at least it applies to me.

World Cup Draw

What a sad week it is... For the first time in many years Manchester United won't be featuring in Europe (not even UEFA Cup) post Christmas. I could imagine the football withdrawal syndrom some of us are going to suffer for many months after this.

Enough about the miserable news. At least there's World Cup 2006 to look forward to.

The World Cup draw on Friday was really strange. Many teams which were in the same group in the past World Cup are meeting one another again. The strangest one being England and Sweden (Eriksson is in dilemma again!)

Things are looking good for England. Brazil, Germany, Portugal and Spain will be having a great time in their respective groups, while Argentina's fans should better pray that their team will get through from the group touted as the 'group of death'.

I think Brazil will win the Cup again if Ronaldinho is not injured or anything. England will probably progress to the quarters or probably semis. Just don't see the consistency in the current England team. It will be interesting to look at the odds from the bookmakers as the World Cup draws nearer.

P/S: Just realised I have missed the news on Arsenal's second league loss in a row. Something to cheer me up at least. I'm also a voyeur like Arsene Wenger. Hee hee... But when will it be Chelsea's turn? I don't want to see Fergie leaving United at the end of the season.

Syabas Nicol!

Nicol David, the Duracell Bunny in the squash world, is finally World No. 1!

Many congratulations for your achievements Nicol! This is really a great year for you. Hope that you could be World No. 1 for a long long time.

This is the real Malaysia Boleh example. I hope the sports ministry will recognise Nicol's great feat.

But what about Karamjit Singh?

[ picture from http://www.sitesquash.com/ ]

Shooting birds

After 3 photography outings last week, I itched to go for another one today. In the end I ended up in the KL Bird Park.

The weather wasn't that good though. What a shame, after paying RM24 for both myself and my wife. One thing I found out from this photography lesson - it's very difficult to capture birds as they tend to be very active. A lot of shots came out blurred.

Anyway here are few of the better shots.

Terror ride

On a lazy Saturday morning, I had one assignment to do - deliver my parents' passports to them by hand from KL to hometown. They have forgotten that they need to go to Singapore, after applying for US visas on Tuesday.

I board the bus at 10am. The weather deteriorated all the way from KL to north. Somewhere in between Tapah and Ipoh, we managed to avoid a speed trap. However, moments after exiting the Jelapang toll, we were stopped by police. I'm not sure whether it was a speed trap or what, all buses were stopped at that point. That was the hilly terrain between Jelapang and Kuala Kangsar.

5 minutes later we were on our way again. 2 or 3 minutes later, the next thing I saw was our bus driver stepping on the breaks, at full force. The back of a big trailer started to fill up the windscreen. Due to the rain and the slope we were at, our bus just kept slipping towards the trailer. For a while it was scary. But I realised we were merely slipping so it wont' result in a big crash. Seconds later, the bus hit the trailer. Just a small touch, resulting in cracks on the left windscreen.

I looked further to find out why the trailer had suddenly stopped. Right in front of the trailer, there were two vehicles - one red proton iswara aeroback and the other one a 4-wheel drive facing the opposite direction - an accident. A mak cik came out from one of the vehicles and fell down immediately. She must have injured he leg or ankle. The bus driver and the trailer driver decided that each should be responsible for their own loss. Seeing that no one is seriously injured, we moved on. The bus driver stopped twice on the emergency lane to inspect the windscreen to ensure it's safe for us to travel.

Immediately after Kuala Kangsar, there was a traffic standstill in front. The sky was pouring at that time. I knew it must be another accident. True enough. This time involving 3 cars. One of them is quite badly dented but luckily no one seem to be seriously injured.

From then onwards our bus sped all the way back to destination. It was quite a scary experience especially in heavy rain. However, we managed to arrived unscathed.

I witnessed two accidents today and one the night before.

Malaysians have one of the highest road accident rates in the world, despite our good infrastructure. It just goes to show how bad our drivers are. It's not about the skills, more about the attitude - selfishness, carelessness and lack of courtesy. As long as these negative attitudes are not checked, we will continue to live in a country with first class infrastructure complemented by law of the jungle.

Fire at KLCC

While I was engaging in photography at KLCC last night, I saw people being evacuated at around 12am. At first I didn't know what was going on until nearly half an hour later, yes, nearly half an hour later when fire engines started to arrive.

I managed to learn from the crowd that a fire had started from screen 8 of Tanjung Golden Village Cinema at 11.45pm. I even overheard one guy saying that the fire department personnel didn't believe him when he called in to report the fire. Probably that's why it took the firemen more than 45 minutes to arrive. I could even smell smoke from outside of KLCC.

By the time I left there was still no indication on the damage and casualty. Hopefully nothing serious.